Being Arab: Ethnic and Religious Identity Building Among Second Generation Youth in Montreal

Being Arab: Ethnic and Religious Identity Building Among Second Generation Youth in Montreal

Abstract

Focusing on the experiences of students from five CEGEPs in Montreal, the author explores how Muslim and Christian Arab-Canadian youth negotiate their ethnic and religious identities. The author pays special attention to the influence of three socio-cultural factors: parental socialization, gender-related traditionalism, and perceived discrimination and stereotyping. He examines how group boundaries among the second generation emerge from re-appropriations of pre-fabricated ethnic labels and identities. He argues that although these youths identify strongly with their ethnic culture and community, nonetheless, they fail to show matching levels of enmeshment in ethnic-based socialization networks. He also found that religion is more experienced by these youths as a group boundary marker, than as a binding frame of religious prescriptions and rituals. His data strongly suggest that religion and ethnicity are intertwined within these youths' identity structure.

Place

Montreal and Kingston

Publisher

McGill-Queen’s University Press

Date

2007

Language

en

Citation

Eid, Paul. Being Arab: Ethnic and Religious Identity Building Among Second Generation Youth in Montreal. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2007.